Tag Archives: social media

You’ll just have to take my word for it though. She’s decided his face will not be on social media.

“I feel it’s his choice and I shouldn’t make that decision for him,” she told me. “Also, there are some weird and awful people on the internet and it freaks me out. I want to protect him. And anyway, people’s baby spam gets so boring…”

It’s a tricky one – particularly for parent bloggers like me.

I take reasonable precautions – I give my children code names, I password-protect the most personal posts and I try to only publish pictures that are appropriate.

I’ve cut back hugely on the instagram pics of my boys. My profile there is open – and I’ve decided to make it less personal and more general. I’ve ‘rebranded’ to EdinburghKim and the focus is now on Edinburgh life. It’s still my Edinburgh life – but I’m thinking more about my audience and what they might be interested in – like recommendations of cafes and days out. Any family pics or videos I put on my insta stories – gone in 24hrs.

Could I take my kids off social media altogether?

I don’t think I could.

I bumped into my friend Sarah in the gym this morning. We hadn’t seen each other for months so the kettlebells were ignored for a good 15 minutes while we caught up.

“I love seeing your pics of the boys,” she said. “You can tell how close they are!”

We met at a baby music class, so I feel like our kids are a big part of our relationship. I love watching her girls grow up, and all the funny things they get up to. I think removing our little ones from social media would really affect the bonds I have with a lot of my friends.

I pushed the boundaries a little bit recently though.

On holiday in Spain, we made a video.

The point of it is to sell our property in Aberdeen – but it’s a bit daft, and both my youngest and my husband feature in it. They both absolutely loved the process and the finished product. KD in particular was a natural on camera and has watched it over and over and over.

One friend who saw it said we should start a channel and my immediate reaction was NO WAY!

That’s a step too far.

If, when they’re old enough, they want to start vlogging then I’ll advise and supervise, but for now I’m going to give them that privacy at least.

My friend Suz and I have been having a very amusing exchange this past fortnight – but today it turned a bit sinister.

You see, she’s made a new friend. She met him through work, so at first had a totally legit reason to text him. Then she had to send him a big file, so used WhatsApp. She started following his Instagram account and he sent her a Facebook friend request.

Now she has to see him at a work event and she’s nervous. He hasn’t replied to her last WhatsApp message even though she can see when he was last active and actually he viewed her Instagram story and tagged her in a Facebook post so she isn’t being a keen bean but then she has instigated the last two conversations and OH MY GOD why is she even questioning it?!

Considering we’re both in our 30s and happily married with kids, we are clearly on this battlefield unarmed.

I ran this past a much younger, single friend and she guffawed.

“Yeah and wait til you add in snapchat!” she groaned.

She met her last boyfriend on Tinder, swapped actual mobile numbers, chatted on Whatsapp became Facebook friends and then, when they finally met for a drink, knew absolutely everything about each other.

“I knew what his last girlfriend looked like, when they’d split up, who’d helped him through it and who they were dating,” she said.

“I was so tempted to ask whether Gary was still with Lucy cos they’d been so nice to him last September – it was crazy having that much background.”

She was very dismissive of her best friend’s ex who frequently liked her Instagram stories but didn’t actually follow her.

“I mean the guy is looking her up manually to check her stories – what a weirdo,” she said witheringly.

Apparently she and her friends have standard messages they’ve created to send out a) if a date is going badly so they can be rescued or b) if the guy needs to be let down gently. Two of the girls have similar tastes so their rule is if they progress from Tinder to Whatsapp they send each other his profile pic to check the other isn’t messaging him too.

Yep. My brain just exploded.

I worry for the future of the human race if this is how we’re mating.

“Oh god no, it’s so much fun!” this young friend corrected me.

“I’m meeting people way outside my circle and a lot of them end up friends. You can feel very powerful while you’re playing the game and you’re always out. Plus, you know, I get bored easily,” she said.

And there’s the nub of the matter.

These millennials are crippled by choice and distracted like children. As painful as it is to be ghosted (that chat that abruptly ends, usually before a date or after a shag) there are plenty more people to swipe left on. Or is it right?